Abstract

Sixteen spring wheat varieties grown during the crop year 2005-06 were characterized for their physicochemical, biochemical, technological (bread and chapatti baking) and immunochemical (ELISA) properties. The physical characteristics such as thousand kernel weight and test weight varied significantly among the wheat varieties. The wheat variety C-273 possessed the highest test weight while the Kohinoor 83 yielded significantly the lowest test weight. The other chemical constituents like moisture, ash, crude protein, crude fat, SDS-sedimentation value, pelshenke value and falling number differed significantly among wheat varieties in both whole wheat flour and straight grade flour. Similarly, a significant variation occurred in the mineral profile like calcium, copper, iron, zinc and manganese among different wheat varieties. The whole wheat flour contained higher minerals content as compared to straight grade flour. The wheat flour of Pasban-90 variety got the maximum scores for bread and chapatti making quality and GA-02 got the lowest scores. In biochemical characterization high molecular weight glutenin subunit (HMW-GS) and low molecular weight glutenin subunit (LMW-GS) were observed in different wheat varieties. The highest number of polypeptide bands for HMW-GS were identified in wheat varieties Pak-81 (80.1kDa to 103.6kDa), Pasban-90 (75.4kDa to 100.3kDa) and Iqbal-2000 (80.8kDa to 102.9kDa). The LMW-GS represented approximately 60% of the total wheat glutenin fractions of different wheat varieties and their molecular weight ranged from 32.3kDa to 67.4kDa. The antibody response assessed through animal modeling using rabbits as test animal showed significant variation in antibody response against HMG and LMG. The antibody response against HMG varied from 0.30 to 0.70 among different wheat varieties. The maximum antibody response against HMG was observed in wheat variety Iqbal-2000 (0.70) and for LMG, the maximum antibody response (0.90) was recorded in wheat variety MH-97. The lowest antibody response was exhibited by the LMG of wheat varieties i.e. Punjab-81, C-273 and FSD-85 which was 0.55, 0.55 and 0.58 respectively. Correlation studies showed significant relationship of HMG and LMG with different quality attributes and sensory parameters of chapatti and bread. A significant and positive correlation was observed between HMG antibody response with crude protein, farinographic water absorption, SDS-sedimentation value, wet gluten and sensoric attributes of both bread and chapatti like color, flavor, texture, taste, aroma and breakability. The LMG antibody response was negatively correlated with flour characteristics and sensorial attributes but with non-significant difference. The immunochemical studies may provide a single tool for the appraisal of the end use quality of wheat varieties.